Reed Pacific Media axes editorial team, ‘We need to focus on staff who make us money, not those just producing content’

Publisher Reed Pacific Media has stripped its editorial team to the bare minimum, making four staff redundant.

The company’s only sales person is staying on, and a lone editorial staffer.

The cut backs are a result of a wobbly retail market, director Doug McNamee told Mumbrella.

“We are moving from permanent to contracted editorial staff. The cost of employing full time editorial staff is just too high,” he said. “We need to focus on staff who make us money, not those just producing the content.”

I am in sales and do very well. However without a product of substance I am unable and unwilling to sell it. It can be a vicious circle and balance is key. If this publisher is purely retaining sales reps, which results in shoddy content, then the sales rep will leave (the good ones) to find a product with more value and appeal to sell… (Why wouldn’t they?)

This doesn’t mean they’re scrapping quality content. You can get wonderful writing by hiring contractors. It just allows the company to pay for content as and when they need it. I think it’s a good move and probably a sign of things to come with other publishers.

Sometimes, I like to tell people how goddamn amazing the publishing business would be without any journalists. Or sales reps. Or clients. It’d just be a big production circle-jerk all day long; everything would get done properly, and everything would get done on time.

We all have a good laugh, and then we get on with reality. It seems like Reed Pacific had a similar conversation, but instead of laughing at the absurdity of it and moving on, they actually decided it was a great idea with a lot of merit.

“We need to focus on staff who make us money, not those just producing the content.”

This attitude is endemic to the whole magazine industry and why the mags are going downhill quickly. The ad guys can’t sell a shit product, and keeping 4 people on staff to produce a magazine normally produced by 15 is going to result in less-than-stellar quality. Get your act together, publishers.

Interesting comment “we need to focus on people who make us money” … In the world I live in, which is the digital world we ALL live in, it’s CONTENT (good content) that separates the wheat from the chaff.